U.S. opinion of Gordon Brown: "Weak and Unstable"

[JFKvsNixon]

Possibly becuase little differentiation was made in the media btween Iraq and Afganistan - they were just sort of conflated into one big middle eastern melt down. I'm not entirely sure where the "defence against attack" thing comes from though?

 

Originally, the whole argument for going into Afghanistan was that the Taliban refused to close down Al Aqaeda's training bases and hand them over to the US. So there was an argument that we went in there to stop them from hatching any further attacks.

[Harleyman]

Iraq was a massively unpopular war here England, there was a march of over 1 million people to protest against it. That's around 2% of England's population in one march. Iraq was Blair's war, as soon as Blair left, the Uk were pulling out. This was always going to be the case.

 

Afghanistan is a different matter, there was always the argument that Afghanistan was a defensive war, or at least a retaliation to being attacked.

 

The popular argument against the Iraq war is that Bush ignored intelligence that there were no WMDs but neverthless went in there with guns blazing like Yosemite Sam

 

However there was more to it than that. In the past Saddam had got himself involved in a war with Iran, used poison gas against Iraqi Kurds, invaded Kuwait and fired missiles at Saudi and Israel with the intention of spreading the Desert Storm war throughout the middle east.

 

This is an appalling record even for any dictator. Saber rattlers are saber rattlers but Saddam was reckless to the point of insanity. There was plenty of reasons to think that sometime in the future he would attempt to carry out yet another rash act

 

Add to that Saddam's strange refusal to allow UN inspections giving the impression that he had in fact something to hide

 

Why these facts are always ignored by those against the Iraq war often surprises me. Maybe they're just victims of the medias simplistic journalism. After all print anything that goes into the more complicated aspects of a subject and the majority of readers will soon lose interest and turn to the sports pages

[Tony]

They aren't ignored, they are reflecting what they were told because the problem that government had with telling the truth is that regime change is illegal, self defence isn't.

[Harleyman]

They aren't ignored, they are reflecting what they were told because the problem that government had with telling the truth is that regime change is illegal, self defence isn't.

 

Since when? Anthony Eden almost caused another war when he tried to topple Egypt's Nasser during the Suez crisis

[JFKvsNixon]

The popular argument against the Iraq war is that Bush ignored intelligence that there were no WMDs but neverthless went in there with guns blazing like Yosemite Sam

 

However there was more to it than that. In the past Saddam had got himself involved in a war with Iran, used poison gas against Iraqi Kurds, invaded Kuwait and fired missiles at Saudi and Israel with the intention of spreading the Desert Storm war throughout the middle east.

 

This is an appalling record even for any dictator. Saber rattlers are saber rattlers but Saddam was reckless to the point of insanity. There was plenty of reasons to think that sometime in the future he would attempt to carry out yet another rash act

 

Add to that Saddam's strange refusal to allow UN inspections giving the impression that he had in fact something to hide

 

Why these facts are always ignored by those against the Iraq war often surprises me. Maybe they're just victims of the medias simplistic journalism. After all print anything that goes into the more complicated aspects of a subject and the majority of readers will soon lose interest and turn to the sports pages

 

Our politicians denied over and over again that the reason for the Iraq war was regime change due to Saddam being an extremely evil man.

 

Time and time again we were told by our positions that the reason for war was the weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam was a potential threat to this country.

 

These are the facts in this country, everybody knew that there wasn't any relation between Saddam and 9/11.

[Harleyman]

Our politicians denied over and over again that the reason for the Iraq war was regime change due to Saddam being an extremely evil man.

 

Time and time again we were told by our positions that the reason for war was the weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam was a potential threat to this country.

 

These are the facts in this country, everybody knew that there wasn't any relation between Saddam and 9/11.

 

I didnt say that there was any relation between Saddam and 9/11. I was saying that based on his mental instability and past reckless behaviour it would have been quite possible that he might have sometime in the distant future launched an attack against Israel or even Saudi or done some other rash act in the middle east.

 

The planes carrying out air surveillance over Iraq after Desert Storm could not be relied on to see everything that was taking place on the ground in a country geographically like Iraq. His anti aircraft batteries were also firing on these planes

[Tony]

Since when? Anthony Eden almost caused another war when he tried to topple Egypt's Nasser during the Suez crisis

 

I have no idea how long regime change has been illegal but illegal it most certainly is. That is why a whole host of other excuses are trotted out when they want to change the regime.

 

Edit: here you go, google illegal regime change

[JFKvsNixon]

I didnt say that there was any relation between Saddam and 9/11. I was saying that based on his mental instability and past reckless behaviour it would have been quite possible that he might have sometime in the distant future launched an attack against Israel or even Saudi or done some other rash act in the middle east.

 

The planes carrying out air surveillance over Iraq after Desert Storm could not be relied on to see everything that was taking place on the ground in a country geographically like Iraq. His anti aircraft batteries were also firing on these planes

 

I didn't mean to suggest that you linked the two, but the American government certainly did, and by and large the American people believed them. We saw this in this country, and all but the most blinkered knew that the reason for going to war in Iraq was built upon one big lie.

[Harleyman]

I didn't mean to suggest that you linked the two, but the American government certainly did, and by and large the American people believed them. We saw this in this country, and all but the most blinkered knew that the reason for going to war in Iraq was built upon one big lie.

 

So you think that all the other reasons I mentioned werent considered by Whitehall and Washington in deciding to get rid of Saddam.

Why none of thses were ever mentioned by Bush and Blair is a mystery to me though

[JFKvsNixon]

So you think that all the other reasons I mentioned werent considered by Whitehall and Washington in deciding to get rid of Saddam.

Why none of thses were ever mentioned by Bush and Blair is a mystery to me though

 

Of course they were considered, they were the reasons why we went to war after all! Everybody else knew it as well, but time and time again our government denied that they were the reasons for going to war.

 

This one issue has cost Blair dearly, his legacy will be the lies he told.